Bloodline Champions Review (PC)

Bloodline Champions Review

Now I’m someone who is pretty sceptical when it comes to people saying that something is great, new, free and really just all in all worth my time. Sounds too good to be true right? Having played my fair share of MMO and MMORPG’s with games such as World of Warcraft, Aion, Warhammer and League of legends. I felt myself aching for something new to play something that that would interest me and keep occupied without being a time sink. (World of Warcraft and Aion truely depleted my will for grinding) And that’s how I came across Bloodline Champions, and boy was I surprised.

The game itself works on a similar 2 part system as League of Legends, I have my summoner/character in the game, who I can progress with in terms of levels and grades, and when I got into an actual game I was able to choose between 22 different Bloodlines/Champions.

‘Oh noes levels, Acroniaz doesn’t that mean we have to grind?’

Fear not, this game is really easy to get into and very little grinding is needed. Levels in Bloodline Champions offer no advantage to one person or another, levels are simply a way to measure the amount of experience someone has in the game. The competitive element of it lies in the grades you can achieve, this is a system in the game where people start off at ‘Grade 1’ and slowly work their way up to a maximum of ‘Grade 30’. You can obtain these through a solo rated queue, 2vs2 Rated queue or 3vs3 Rated queue. Each grade comes with its own cool little title, like Vicious Berserker, Arbitrator and even *epic voiceover* Blood God. Although it’s not all happy days, as you achieve higher grades you get put up against harder, tougher and more experienced people. That’s where it annoyed me a little, once you get out of the new/rookie zone of the game, you get put up against harder players that simply have more experience in their bloodlines (Bloodlines are basically in-game champions), team combination and combos, but hey what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

Now the currency is called Blood Coins, these allow you to get Bloodlines, cool looking armour and weapons for your favourite bloodlines (They’re only aesthetics though, no actual advantage gained by wearing them), you can buy titles for your summoner too (Acroniaz the Godlike…I wish) and lastly you can buy avatars to customize your summoner so it looks seriously cool. No honestly it’s cool. Now the grinding needed to get these Blood Coins isn’t too bad. You can pick up and play any of the free bloodlines and start earning Blood Coins by playing games and achievements. The game cleverly uses the system of achievements by adding a significant amount of Blood Coins onto certain achievements, so for example simply completing the tutorial nets you 500 Blood coins. You can also go into practice games and play all the Bloodlines in the games to see which one you like best, and continue getting achievements which in turn help you unlock you’re favourite Bloodline permanently. Not too get too carried away though, once you rush through the easier achievements getting Blood Coins does get harder but not massively, the game does well to find the right balance between making you work for it, but not making you stressed.

I recommend anyone who’s reading this to just give it a try

Now the gameplay itself I think is what makes this game stand out. It’s pretty simply an arena game where people get placed on teams and face off vs. the other team. The gameplay makes a world of difference though; I mean every single skill in the game is a cursor based skill shot. What this means is that, if you’re playing a healer bloodline and your cursor isn’t hovering over the player you want to heal you’ll miss. If your ally moves from where your cursor was you’ll miss. If you got knocked out of position you’re cursor will move too and you’ll miss. Now this doesn’t mean the game sucks it simply means that to master the game takes a tremendous amount of skill. With each spell and melee attack needing to be accurate and hand-eye coordination needs to be very good. Even when I first started I got seriously annoyed at the mechanics but the longer I stuck with it the better and more accurate I got. However what that does mean is that this game has a very steep learning curve. If you’re transitioning from World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Rift, Aion pretty much any other MMO, you’re going to need to change from the way you’re playing. In World of Warcraft you simply hit frostbolt and the spell launches and chases the target. If you’re playing League of legends, you simply press heal and hover over who you want to heal, this game challenges those usual dynamics and forces you to aim, predict and fire to land your spells.

Now the downside to the game (Yes, it does have some, I know I know, it was going so well right?) is the fact that there is no report function or ban function. Now this is in specific regard to Solo ranked queue, you can come against or with people who play really bad on purpose. The only thing you can do is hope you don’t get them again. On the other hand that’s why the game has custom public games and a 2vs2 and 3vs3 bracket.

Other than that and the learning curve you’ve got to get your head round this game has no real glaring flaws and operates beautifully. The graphics are wonderful considering the game is free and ridiculously tiny, the music and game sounds fit in well and aren’t the over-powering sounds that force you to mute the game for all eternity (I’m looking at you Murlocs), the community is great partly because it’s small and partly because the game forces people to change and adapt to become good at it and that seems to keep the riff-raff out.

Overall I’d say that this game has proven to be my oasis in the desert of copied, mimicked and stale MMO’s that are out there right now. If you’re looking for something new to play, or you just want to keep yourself busy without committing to anything too much then Bloodline Champions is just game for you. I recommend anyone who’s reading this to just give it a try, trust me you won’t regret it.